R&R: Beach Drive cycling path heads right way

The first thing you should know is that Bill Zupancic is a nice guy, a really nice guy. He's a transportation planner for the Kitsap County Department of Public Works.

As such, you could hardly blame him if he'd get a little irked by reading something like "Don Knotts has wider shoulders than the roads in Kitsap County," or "I've seen wider shoulders on Twiggy." Did I say "a little irked?" Bill Zupancic might even get downright angry.

The trouble is, it's true. If you plan to ride a bike on most of the shoulders on Kitsap County roads, plan on a dangerous journey. Plan on motorists honking at you. Plan on riding on gravel or worse, crushed rock. If you continue to ride on the shoulders of county roads, plan on eventually getting injured.

The shoulders on Kitsap County roads are so dangerous to bicyclists that, when Bill Zupancic arrived on the local scene lo, these many years ago, he stopped bicycling. "When I came up here, we were a biking family," he said. "But after I saw what it was like here, not only couldn't they ride, I just flat took their bikes away."

Bill Zupancic hails from Pueblo, Colo. He says it isn't a large community, but it has had something for years that Kitsap County still lacks: a coordinated trail system used exclusively by bicyclists and pedestrians. Zupancic says he figured everyone had trails like Pueblo's.

So when he found out they don't have trails like that around here, Bill Zupancic set out to plan some. In fact, he and a whole bunch of bicyclists and other trail-oriented volunteers have formulated a plan for trails which stretch from one end of this county to the other. As it happens, there are federal and state dollars for planning these "greenways," as they are called.

This is a fortunate circumstance for transportation planners, but it doesn't do bicyclists a whole lot of good. Bicyclists who are riding their bikes to work every day will not benefit greatly by trails which are designed primarily for recreational riders. You've still got to pedal from your house to the trail and from the trail to your place of work, and that means riding on those nonexistent, dangerous shoulders.

Today, Bill Zupancic is scrambling for money to fund a very worthwhile project: the Beach Drive Waterfront Trail in South Kitsap. There is a very real possibility that money will be available to build at least a portion of that trail. Once built, Zupancic believes, trail users will see to it that it is lengthened until it stretches from Port Orchard to Southworth or thereabouts.

And that trail will be the seed for other parts of the greenway to grow, according to Zupancic. It is a vision shared by many, something many more look forward to, including me.

Zupancic says that a key to the Beach Drive project becoming a reality is the support of bicyclists. Letters from cyclists to the county, including support from local bike clubs such as the West Sound Cycling Club are critical to obtaining funding for the project.

But something that Bill Zupancic cannot explain has happened: represenatives of local bike clubs are no longer attending the trail planning meetings. When I talked to Zupancic last week, I suggested this apparent lack of interest might be attributed to one thing:

Most of the people who ride bikes every day would rather spend their time and efforts on getting paved shoulders and safe places to ride on county roads. Recreational bike riders can and do travel to other, safer places to ride, and use trails already on the ground in other enlightened communities, like Seattle.

Now, Zupancic can give you several solid economic reasons why the county can't go out and start paving the shoulders on county roads. Some lack adequate right-of-way. None were engineered for paved shoulders, and to add them would require new engineering for each road.

"It isn't as simple as it sounds," says Zupancic. It takes more than asphalt and a steamroller.

As you might see on the page next door, paved shoulders, bikeways and pedestrian lanes are being constructed on new work. Zupancic says that each time an old road gets new engineering, paved shoulders  at a minimum  will be planned.

The problem is that money is available for greenways and open spaces and trails. Those things are at the top of the heap when it comes to urban recreation. Money for paving shoulders is about as scarce as a sweet smell around Bremerton's sewage treatment plant. Perhaps someday, that will change.

Until then, I'm rooting for Bill Zupancic and the Beach Drive Trail. I hope everyone who rides a bike will send him letters of support, and that the clubs who stage rides in Kitsap County  including Seattle's Cascade Bike Club and the Tacoma Wheelmen  write letters in support of the project.

And if you have to pedal on a dangerous, narrow shoulder on your way to work or on the way to the new trail, don't blame Bill Zupancic. He's a nice guy who is doing everything he can.

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